Process leading to supernova explosions and cosmic radio bursts unearthed at PPPL
A promising method for producing and observing on Earth a process important to black holes, supernova explosions and other extreme cosmic events has been proposed by scientists at Princeton University's Department of Astrophysical Sciences, SLAC National Acceleraor Laboratory, and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The process, called quantum...
Improving the evidence: Scientists review quantitative climate migration literature
Quantitative empirical studies exploring how climatic and other environmental drivers influence migration are increasing year by year. PIK scientists have now reviewed methodological approaches used in the quantitative climate migration literature. Their review plays an important role when it comes to assessing how climatic factors influence human migration, and provides guidance to researchers...
How the expanded child tax credit is helping families
American households making less than $50,000 are more likely than higher-earning families to spend the expanded child tax credit on essential expenses and tutors for their children, found a survey from the Social Policy Institute (SPI) at Washington University in St. Louis.
As oil and dead wildlife wash up, California seeks end to offshore drilling. Why its hands are tied
As dead birds wash ashore on Southern California beaches, the victims of a major oil spill, environmentalists are calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to reduce the state's ties to the oil industry.
Physicists report promising approach to harnessing exotic electronic behavior
For some 50 years scientists have worked to harness Bloch oscillations, an exotic kind of behavior by electrons that could introduce a new field of physics—and important new technologies—much like more conventional electronic behavior has led to everything from smart watches to computers powerful enough to get us to the Moon.
Late-time small-body asteroid disruptions can protect the Earth
If an asteroid is determined to be on an Earth-impacting trajectory, scientists typically want to stage a deflection, where the asteroid is gently nudged by a relatively small change in velocity, while keeping the bulk of the asteroid together.
Waterhemp goes off script to resist herbicides
Cementing waterhemp's reputation as a hard-to-kill weed in corn and soybean production systems, University of Illinois researchers have now documented the weed deviating from standard detoxification strategies to resist an herbicide that has never been commercialized.
Physics Nobel: deciphering climate disorder to better predict it
The Nobel Prize in Physics has gone to three scientists who sought to predict the long-term evolution of a complex system such as the climate by modelling variables—weather, human actions—that create disorder within those systems.
Study: India is home to half of all people vulnerable to life-threatening heat
When bestselling science-fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson opened his latest novel, The Ministry for the Future, he set the scene in India, where a deadly heat dome wipes out almost the entire population of a provincial city, sowing the seed for a radical political movement to combat climate change.
New way to image whole organisms in 3D brings key skin color pigment into focus
To understand the biological underpinnings of skin and hair pigmentation and related diseases such as albinism or melanoma, scientists and doctors need quantitative, three-dimensional information about the architecture, content and location of pigment cells. Penn State College of Medicine researchers have developed a new technique that allows scientists to visualize every cell containing melanin...
Frantic fight to protect coast as worsening Orange County oil spill stalks beaches
A huge slick of oil stalked the California coast Tuesday as officials frantically tried to protect ecologically sensitive shorelines and investigators probed whether a ship's anchor caused a pipe breach that sent tens of thousands of gallons of crude into the waters off Orange County.
Working overtime: NASA's deep space atomic clock completes mission
For more than two years, NASA's Deep Space Atomic Clock has been pushing the timekeeping frontiers in space. On Sept. 18, 2021, its mission came to a successful end.
This hydrogel tablet can purify a liter of river water in an hour
As much as a third of the world's population does not have access to clean drinking water, according to some estimates, and half of the population could live in water-stressed areas by 2025. Finding a solution to this problem could save and improve lives for millions of people, and it is a high priority among scientists and engineers around the globe.
An X-ray view of carbon
At the heart of planets, extreme states are to be found: temperatures of thousands of degrees, pressures a million times greater than atmospheric pressure. They can therefore only be explored directly to a limited extent—which is why the expert community is trying to use sophisticated experiments to recreate equivalent extreme conditions. An international research team including the...
Gene linked to evolution of limb development identified
University of Kentucky College of Medicine researchers were part of a new study that gives insight into how limb development evolved in vertebrates.
A new way to remove troublesome ions from water
Converting seawater into fresh water is important in water-scarce countries. For that process, certain charged particles—known as ions—have to be removed from the water. However, some ions are difficult to remove from water due to their chemical properties. Recent research by scientists from Israel and the Netherlands is helping to improve this ion-removal process.
Scientists find oxygen levels explain ancient extinction slowdown
Not long after the dawn of complex animal life, tens of millions of years before the first of the "Big Five" mass extinctions, a rash of die-offs struck the world's oceans. Then, for reasons that scientists have debated for at least 40 years, extinctions slowed down.
Extreme exoplanet even more exotic than originally thought
Considered an ultra-hot Jupiter—a place where iron gets vaporized, condenses on the night side and then falls from the sky like rain—the fiery, inferno-like WASP-76b exoplanet may be even more sizzling than scientists had realized.
Three new species of freshwater goby fish found in Japan and the Philippines
A team of biologists from Japan and the Philippines have identified three new species of goby fish, belonging to the genus Lentipes. They were described in a study published today in the journal, Systematics and Biodiversity.
Molecular scales on biological membranes
Cellular processes on membranes are often fast and short-lived. Molecules assemble briefly, separate again, interact with different partners and move along or through the membrane. It is therefore important to not only study static snapshots of these processes, but also to understand their dynamics. But how can this be achieved methodically? Petra Schwille from the Max Planck Institute of...
Researcher analyzes 99 gay/trans panic defense cases
St. Edward's University Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Carsten Andresen is shedding light on a controversial legal strategy, called the gay/trans panic defense, in what is believed to be the largest analysis of gay/trans panic defense murder cases in the social sciences so far.
Research gives new insight into capitalizing on momentum investing
Every investor is chasing the answer to one question: When should I buy stocks and when should I sell them? It's the elusive formula for timing the market. New research co-authored by Albert "Pete" Kyle, the Charles E. Smith Chair Professor of Finance at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, shows how markets gain momentum and how investors can make better decisions...
Researchers develop an intervention that cuts recidivism among children reentering school from the justice system
For a child leaving juvenile detention, building a relationship with a teacher who believes in them can make all the difference. A new Stanford-led study suggests that a personalized one-page letter can go a long way toward helping forge that relationship – and reduce the likelihood that the student will re-offend.
Road map outlines hurdles in next-generation cathode development for powering electric vehicles
The move to electric vehicles calls for a wide range of improvements in energy and power density, as well as more reliable and cost-effective lithium batteries. Next-generation cathodes look to provide such advances soon. Realizing these new compounds, however, will require extensive coordination across several scientific disciplines.
Discovery of new marine worm species
Researchers from the Swedish Museum of Natural History have identified a new species of marine worm living in the Basque region of Spain. Named Faerlea assembli, the worm is just 0.8mm long and was discovered as part of research conducted at Plentzia Marine Station.